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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

The watercolour, Wasp
Woman was begun, but not quite completed, during my term as artist in
residence at the Art Vault in Mildura last December (see Blog Post Friday,
December 12, 2014).

After the residency ended, Christmas and all its attendant
distractions intervened, and then there were further insect women waiting
to be documented. It’s only now I’ve had a chance to add the finishing touches
to this homo-insecta and give the sting in her tail one last polish – just in
time for her to partake in the wasp plague currently upon us in Ballarat.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

AKA Tectorcoris diopthalmus Woman and Cotton Harlequin Bug Woman, this luminescent Homo-insecta hails from Northern and Eastern Australia, New Guinea and several of the Pacific Islands. Adult females are predominantly orange with blue patches, although the colours vary considerably. The female of the species is larger than the male.

The Hibiscus Harlequin Bug Woman feeds on several species of the Hibiscus family, cultivated cotton, flame free flowers, grevillea and bottlebrush saplings.

An installation view of Between the Sheets, the international artist books exhibition that includes my unbound book, Homo-insecta (foreground, right) inset below with the front cover and selected page views.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Further to my previous post, which focused on the newly completed Jewel
Beetle Woman (Sternocera aequisignata) I now present my Muse: Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928) as Lady Macbeth, a role she
famously performed on the West End of London in 1888. Amongst the crowd on
opening night was the painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) who later persuaded her to sit for him. An eye witness to Terry’s arrival at
Sargent’s Chelsea studio was none other than Oscar Wilde, who remarked: “The
street that on a wet and dreary morning has vouchsafed the vision of Lady Macbeth
in full regalia magnificently seated in a four-wheeler can never again be as
other streets: it must always be full of wonderful possibilities."

Alice Comyns-Carr designed the gown, which you can read about HERE. Ada
Nettleship crocheted it from a combination of soft green wool and blue tinsel
yarn from Bohemia that was primarily intended to evoke chain mail, whilst also
suggesting the scales of a serpent. The dress was sewn with 1000 iridescent
wings from the green Jewel Beetle Sternocera aequisignata.

Terry kept the ‘beetle dress’for the rest of her life and sometimes
wore it on special occasions. The gown now resides in the permanent collection of the
Ellen Terry Museum, Smallhythe Place, near Tenterden in Kent, UK. I first
visited this beautiful museum, which was formerly Terry’s home, in the mid-1970s and
returned in 2011, soon after a major restoration of the gown had been
undertaken. You can learn about it HEREand HERE.

Monday, March 2, 2015

For a great many years I've been drawn to portrait miniatures, particularly those produced in the sixteenth century by two of its finest and most celebrated exponents, Nicholas Hilliard and his pupil, Isaac Oliver.

Completed just a few days ago, Red and Blue Leaf Beetle Woman draws equally from my personal iconography and the tradition of cabinet painting, which came to prominence in the late 1580s. Diminutive, but larger in scale than portrait miniatures - the majority of cabinet pictures measure up to 24.5 centimetres (10 inches) in height and typically present a full-length, highly detailed view of the subject.

Collectors stored these intimate works in a "cabinet", a small private room that sometimes served as a study. (The name "cabinet" originates from the Italian word for room). In later years cabinet paintings were housed in display cases that were also known as cabinets.

Red and Blue Leaf Beetle Woman is not destined for such a closeted existence, however. Under the auspices of the project Looking Down Under: Australian Contemporary Art, she is one of 200 works heading for Italy, where they will become part of the Luciano Bennetton Imago Mundi Collection.

About me

I am a visual artist who makes paintings, drawings, prints and book art. In 2009 I founded Moth Woman Press, through which I publish my zines and limited edition books, beginning with ‘There was once… The collected fairy tales’, a small anthology of thirteen original stories illustrated with my prints, paintings and drawings. Currently I divide my time between Melbourne and Ballarat in South Western Victoria.